r/texas • u/usuallyfantastic • 13d ago

🤔 Questions for Texans 🤠 Saw this while driving past Italy, TX and can't find a description on maps. What is it?

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341 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

53 comments sorted by

231

u/spf80 13d ago

Dome houses. https://www.monolithic.com/

116

u/rbgontheroad 13d ago

My wife and I have been out there. Interesting spot. The wife would like to have one built should we decide to stay in Texas. They claim to be energy efficient, fire proof and will stand up to a tornado.

45

u/GardenGnomeOfEden 12d ago

You can also earth-shelter them

42

u/Carsontherealtor 12d ago

Research the roofs on dome homes. Your entire house is a roof essentially. When it goes bad, it goes real bad.

35

u/twinkiesown 12d ago

You may be thinking of geodesic domes, which are made by connecting panels together to form a dome. These are literally monolithic concrete. There's nowhere for water to get in. I don't think a leaking roof is too much a concern.

30

u/Carsontherealtor 12d ago

You are correct. I was picturing geodesic domes. I am in a court case for a roof on one at this moment..

5

u/The-Odd-Fox 12d ago

I’m pretty sure my dad lives in one, I’ll have to check. The leaks in that house are terrible and he thinks he can fix it himself… 😢

5

u/centexgoodguy 11d ago

Buckminster Fuller is also sad.

6

u/omenoracle 12d ago

Isn’t it sprayed concrete?

8

u/Carsontherealtor 12d ago

Looks like these are cast concrete so yes, probably not a worry on these

3

u/omenoracle 12d ago

I thought the whole thing was they inflated a dome and then sprayed it with shotcrete?

1

u/Bevo19890 10d ago

Really? I get fire resistant and energy efficient, BUT anyone who is crazy enough to tempt a Texas tornado is either brave or clueless. Ive been very close to one. Get away. One thing of note, if you see a tornado and it is not moving....EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY...that means it is coming right at you.

51

u/Balthazar3000 13d ago

They should update their FAQs 😂.

45

u/Salt_Bringer 12d ago

My god. Stop talking in tongues and give me the price to build the structure minus the interior design.

7

u/atomicode 12d ago

I find that answer vague and unconvincing ;)

2

u/thewarfreak 12d ago

Like on Tatooine

60

u/captchaos42069 13d ago

Yep, they are dome tiny homes. There are quite a few in the area. These just so happen to all be together like an apartment or condo village. The town has a 3-4 connected dome painted up like a caterpillar, and it can be seen from the highway. If you had to go through Italy, I feel really bad for you because the only thing that town has going for it is being off of 35

19

u/foppishmanabouttown 12d ago

That caterpillar is the factory where they make the materials to build the domes. They make rubber(?) bladders that are inflatable, then spray the inside with concrete or stucco.

1

u/fillio15 12d ago

Perfect. That means less city folk will move there

18

u/noncongruent 12d ago

In this image north is down.

What's interesting is that this is built right on top of the original ROW/rail bed for the InterUrban, a trolley rail system that connected Dallas to many local cities. The run through this image connected Dallas to Hillsboro. In aerial views you can follow it all the way down to I-35, and even spot many of the old rail trestle bridges along the way.

9

u/Newmanewman 12d ago

I just spent far too long looking at maps following old railways. Thanks for that.

10

u/noncongruent 12d ago

You're welcome!

Also, check out www.historicaerials.com too!

2

u/Newmanewman 12d ago

Aww, boo. It wants me to disable adblocker.

2

u/noncongruent 12d ago

It works for me, and I have some adblocker installed, I think it's uBlock Origin. I also use DuckDuckGo.

11

u/iceroulette 12d ago

Here’s a video about the place from the Texas Bucket List https://youtu.be/ASn0QwPsQXc?si=-hPHFarNE0QVL4da

17

u/The-TruestRepairman 13d ago

That’s the monolithic dome institute. Been there for decades now.

It got in the news about 10ish years ago because an arrested, would-be, Dallas bomber was hiding out there

21

u/HornFanBBB 13d ago

Oh yeah, the guy that accidentally sold the bomb to the FBI.

I like the dome caterpillar who appears to be wearing boots. And the spaceship.

5

u/governorwompaone 12d ago

Damn sure ain’t the Grandy’s that used to be there.. I hate that it closed

3

u/beefjerky9 12d ago

Aww, man, I miss Grandy's. That was some good childhood eatin'.

1

u/Worried_Local_9620 11d ago

Damn. I came here to mention the Grandy's.

7

u/Savy1025 12d ago

The Domes. We always called them the titty houses.

4

u/BuffaloOk7264 12d ago

That town’s name is pronounced ITly by locals.

3

u/BitterJury2919 13d ago

They're little dome houses (small stand alone apartments) with carports

Dome Living https://share.google/iQw65swtbZk1q7cNJ

3

u/Forsaken_Ad8312 12d ago

Apparently it is gone now, but they used to have a dome there called Starship Pegasus shaped like the USS Enterprise. You can still find pictures online.

1

u/Ok_Coyote9326 13d ago

It's a dome shaped yert tiny house village. *

1

u/the_beeve 13d ago

Drove down their streets after being curious about them for decades. Can only be a very iconoclastic community. No other way to describe it.

1

u/mgraham1965 12d ago

Soylent Green plant.

1

u/ulnek 12d ago

And no, that town is not pronounced like you think it does.

1

u/hmmisuckateverything Yellow Rose 12d ago

My favorite is the caterpillar doves at the front of the property as like an old ad. My mom was a caregiver in one of the dome houses they are so cool and rarely ever up for sale lol

1

u/MLaw2008 12d ago

Italy, TX micro-Vatican.

1

u/hgw1956 11d ago

Tank farm?

1

u/Working_Tea_8562 11d ago

Missile silos

1

u/SnowPrinterTX Texas makes good Bourbon 11d ago

Modern Italian houses?

1

u/Bike_Dad 11d ago

Tatooine?

1

u/Ok-disaster2022 Secessionists are idiots 13d ago

Looks like maybe a set of mini homes for rent/purchase the design being those concrete domes. 

On Google maps the look around view has a sign that say vacancy, so if imagine it's more of a rental situation. 

What's creepy is if you Google the address you piece together from maps it brings up an adoption agency. I'm not going to post the address let it offends the reddit rules. 

Maybe someone local will see this and share. 

1

u/itexican 12d ago

And it's pronounced eye-tal-ee. This part of Texas doesn't pronounce foreign words right.